Dragon Age - --Forum Highlights @ Sorcerer's Place

August 28th, 2007, 15:43

Dragon Age, Bioware's first RPG title in their own created universe, is still in development. Sorcerer's Place once more sifts through the Dragon Age forums to bring us some of Dave Gaider's responses to the community. There's a long discussion on gay romances, but also a brief look at the magic system :

… The mage class has talent trees just as the other classes do -- the difference being that, with the mage, these talents have spells associated with them. As with the other classes, the mage can choose to be a generalist and select basic talents from all four schools of magic if he wishes -- or he can specialize, which (just as with other classes) is the only way you are going to be able to access the really powerful spells… Without going into detail on what they consist of (and I won't, so don't ask), the four spell schools are: Creation, Entropy, Spirit and Primal. Keep in mind that these are also not at all final and could change at any time.

And some NPC information:

In the end, we did come up with a few female comedic ideas-- characters that were funny either due to their wit or simply because of how they played against type. Even so, they weren't the knee-slapping variety and we ended up abandoning the notion because it seemed a bit forced.

I don't consider Imoen a comedic character, for instance -- she had some funny lines, but that's not what her character was about. Personally, I'm not sure that Viconia or Jaheira even had many funny lines. And, in the end, I'm not sure that we need a female character that is also primarily comedic. They need not all be the ultra-serious, purse their lips, tug their braids type either, mind you.

…In the right circumstances any character can be funny. I don't think there's a single party member in DA that doesn't get a laugh or two somewhere…

Originally Posted by Maylander
I was really looking forward to it back in 2004, but now I've pretty much given up on it. Reminds me of Duke Nukem -Wait- Forever. If it is ever actually completed, I will definetly pick it up though.

Wow … I hadn't realized it was 2004 when it was announced … but check out this IGN first look.

But even then it was only early in development, so it is really in no way like DNF. It is not like they have promised delivery years ago, it wasn't supposed to be out by now, was it? I thought it was originally 2007 or so, now ~'08.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I was really looking forward to it back in 2004, but now I've pretty much given up on it. Reminds me of Duke Nukem -Wait- Forever. If it is ever actually completed, I will definetly pick it up though.

An RPG with a new engine typically takes around 5 years to develop. NWN1 certainly did. Bioware were always up-front that they announced very early in the development cycle so that we would know they had not abandoned PC gamers.

Given the usual 5 year cycle, Dragon Age is right on target for an 08/09 release. Personally I'm glad for the early heads up and the forums - gives fans a chance to get feedback and influence design when there's a remote chance of that still being possible. If Bioware went for the usual silence and announcement a year or so before release then that chance is lost - and we'd currently all be convinced Bioware was now exclusively a console developer.

Originally Posted by dduke
For me looks like another empty game, with useless dialogs and places, painful story and a barrage of nonsense.
Has described in the interviews above.

Wow… you could tell all that from a bunch of out-of-context developer forum posts that the link went to? That's some skill you have there.

Who cares about gay romances at all or comic characters?
They need in some way to make an up to date good game to please customers, throw away fancy graphics if it's useless like in NWN2.

Who cares? Well most probably all the forum goers who continually posted to the thread(s) about gay romance I would imagine. But it seems that David Gaider is going to ignore your advice and not please those customers - if you read what he said he was dead against adding a gay romance just for the sake of it.

Originally Posted by magerette
Maybe after Mass Effect is released this fall they'll get the project on the front burner.

Yes, I think that's exactly what one of the BioWare PR folks said. Paraphrasing, he pretty much said 'Let us finish ME and once that's done we'll be bombarding you with Dragon Age news until you have Dragon Age coming out your ears.' .

There is already to much streamlining - three Races, three Classes (with Kotor-like upgrading), no Death until the whole Party is killed, probably developed with a console-version in Mind…

I'm expecting a Fantasy-KOTOR and certainly not the spiritual Sucessor of Baldur's Gate 2 … but I might still buy it for the story-line if the ratings here are good and not that bad at the Codex (or if there will be a promising Mod-Scene)

I think it's absolutely impossible to come to many informed conclusions about Dragon Age, other than enjoying the way David Gaider smacks idiots around in the forums, and a general observation that BioWare develops a certain type of game and adapts quickly to the market.

And, you know, I enjoyed BG2 much more than KotOR but KotOR actually developed a number of areas - it improved displomatic skills and multiple approaches, for example.

I'm very interested to see what they have been doing all this time - partly out of interest in the game itself and partly out if curiosity.

Originally Posted by Fenris
There is already to much streamlining - three Races, three Classes (with Kotor-like upgrading), no Death until the whole Party is killed, probably developed with a console-version in Mind…

I'm expecting a Fantasy-KOTOR and certainly not the spiritual Sucessor of Baldur's Gate 2 … but I might still buy it for the story-line if the ratings here are good and not that bad at the Codex (or if there will be a promising Mod-Scene)

I know I'm not the only who HATES when game makers take away the omnipresent possibility of instant death for the main character.

In Fallout & Baldur's Gate, it's precisely that danger and suspense, and threat of death to your cherished character (and recruited NPC's) which made those games so challenging, demanding and GREAT.

It's really a dumbing down of RPG's, this "you can kill them but they can't kill you" idea. A blatant cheat. It's lame.

But the modding community usually strikes back to make mortality truly mortifying, and in tune with the tradition of RPG's.

Normally game developments are released to the public 1½-2½ years before game developments are finished and the game is ready to be released.

Bioware DID announce Dragon Age (DA) in 2004 for the PC only, simply because they wanted to put the pc fan based market at rest, they, bioware, hadn't abandoned development for the pc.

As far as I know, from the start. it was the plan to only have three races, and three races. However, like Mass Effect, your backgorund does count in Dragon Age. If you, in Dragon Age, chooses to be an elf, you will start in the elf village. If you chooses to be a warrior, in DA, you can get access to other abilities etc. than the warrior's as you level up - just like in ME.

Also, David G. has said - there will be no resurrection spells or healing spells or potions in this game. For healing, your team and yourself will have to hump back to camp to get treatment by a doctor.

I'm tired of Gaider constantly waxing philosophically myself. He doesn't actually talk much about the development and that's what I want to hear about.

The one problem with Dragon Age of course is how generic it all seems. It's just another fantasy IP in the vein of D&D but without all the hassle of the approval process. Starting with the name they are making an overtly conscious effort to make it familiar when they had an opportunity to make something very flexible and original, ie. throwing away the class system.

Five years is too long for any game development including RPGs. NWN was an anomaly. Among other things it got held up by legal problems with Interplay. They were also not familiar with 3D development and had to learn from the ground up.

Part of the problem too is that they don't have a publisher yet. Development is all self funded. But they are obviously developing as seen from the shots of the updated graphics engine. Those shots from 2004 he said were from the NWN Engine. I'm not sure why they are keeping a tight lid on things. They could publish their PnP RPG they used for example to get players familiar with world.

I have hopes for a better version of NWN with a good toolset so I can develop a good PW from a company that understands their product unlike Obsidian. Gaider's already said they are going to focus on the game and it'll "probably have a toolset" so that's not encouraging. Again, though I hope its a statement for investors but it sounds like another sign of development by focus group.

If you look at how long Fallout has been in development, Bethsoft started development on this in 2004. And they had a working setting to develop their Fallout 3 game into. And yet, development still took (or takes) allmost 4 years, or maybe 4½ years, as it is being released in Fall(out) 2008.

Bioware needed almost a year, from 2004-2005, to make the game's setting. Then development began (slowly) in 2005-2006, then in 2006 they made it into somewhat full production. And after Mass Effect is released in november 2007, Dragon Age production will be on full fledged & full steam ahead production. I expect a Dragom Age release in november 2008 or maybe in february or may
2009 or so.

As for gay romances, I happen to agree with David Gaider. There's no need to put gay romances in, just for the sake or putting them into the game. If the game needs gay romances, there needs to be reason within the story to add gay romances, or any romances, for that matter, into the game.

Originally Posted by Arpyjee
It's really a dumbing down of RPG's, this "you can kill them but they can't kill you" idea. A blatant cheat. It's lame.

How is there a constant threat when you know you are just going to reload? Implemented properly (and, yes, I know I'm losing hardcore credibility points for saying this), I think the "unconscious" thing can work.

I would never play a game where if I died, I had to start all over again. I just don't have the time for that, and I suck at twitch combat!! The challenge for ME is to finish the game, enjoy the story and the characters, etc, not to boast about how 'badass' my char was and that he could take out a Boss in twenty seconds. When some of you reach my age, (if ever ), you'll understand what I mean!!!!

In the BG series, if any character died, I would mount an expedition to resurrect them. At low levels, that usually meant skimping on expenditures to save up for the costly spell. If my own character died and the game forced me to quit or reload from a saved game, I would reload once or twice. If that failed, then I would accept that my character's story ended in failure, abandon the game no matter how far along I was, and either play a different game, or roll up a completely new character.

I don't mind that if a character is beaten silly, he or she falls unconscious until the battle ends. What I mind is that reviving them is so cheap -- meaning both inexpensive, and lame. In the real world, if my friend is hit by a bullet or skewered with a sword, he doesn't stand up once the villain runs away. Instead, we call an ambulance. Serious things happen. The way BG handled it felt right -- you could get anybody back (except yourself) with some effort. The way IWD handled was even better, because your other team members could rescue you if you died. But it took effort.

Hmm. Icewind Dale. Mmm. Kinda want to go start up a new game with a party full of clerics….